Skeletons in the Attic
by Meowiegirl
Summary: Seto goes up to the attic, looking for answers for Gozaburo's cruelty. Instead, he finds a diary and learns a horrifying family secret. Soon after, bizzarre things begin to happen... Nonconsensual GozaburoSeto, and shounen-ai (MokubaNoa) Rating may go up.
1. Up to the Attic

Skeletons in the Attic

A/N: Yay! My first Yu-Gi-Oh suspense story! Woooo!

Okay, I'll shut up now. Um, you know the drill... I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh, and there's lots of shounen-ai, as usual. Heheh... Warnings are as follows: child abuse, Gozaburo, death, blood, and just general twistedness.

Summary: One day, while cleaning out his attic, Seto stumbles upon a trunk of Gozaburo's old things. Wanting answers for all of the things Gozaburo did to him, Seto starts to read the diary and finds out a terrifying secret. Odd things begin to happen, and with Mokuba losing his grip on reality, Seto must bury the chilling secrets of the Kaiba family once and for all...

Pairings are as follows: Gozaburo lusting after Seto, Mokuba with a crush on Noa, and for once, I'm not gonna pair Seto up with a certain blonde inu or a certain albino angel! Actually, he's all alone as of now.

I'll go away and let you read in peace now.

CHAPTER ONE

One step up.

I was going up to the attic, not to hide, not to be imprisoned, but to exorcize my demons.

Two steps up.

Yes, for the first time in my life, I was going up there of my own free will.

Three steps up. A quarter of the way there.

I knew I would scream and cry and curse Gozaburo, I knew it. That's why I made Mokuba stay downstairs, playing with his Gameboy.

Four steps up.

But I had to go. It was time to do some spring cleaning, time to get some answers.

Five steps up.

Answers for the things Gozaburo did to me. To Mokuba.

Six steps up.

Gozaburo was never my father, never my guardian. I would not be made in his image!  
  
I ran the rest of the way up. I was on the twelfth step when my foot would not move the six inches to the attic. Six inches to the place where I bled and cried and was tormented when Gozaburo was alive. Six inches to Hell.

But I was going slay all of Hell's demons.

My left foot finally made contact with the boards, and all the memories came rushing back in full fury, even more so than they had on all of those nights since the day, three months before, that I had promised myself to do this. It was three months ago to that day that I found out who Noa was, and a bit less than that when I beat Gozaburo at his own game for the last time.

The air was dusty, and I coughed, but soon, this place would be painted some nice color, and the sun would come in the windows again. No more grimy windows, no more ugly fluorescent bulb hanging by a single cable. No more memories of me hiding up here, of Gozaburo finding me, hurting me, raping me. No more, no more, never again.

That place hadn't changed a bit. Same trunks, same dirt, same bed. The bed, oh God, the bed. I hated that damned bed and I still do. I've still got those memories burned into my mind as if I'd just been dragged up there yesterday:

I'm screaming, Gozaburo's hitting me. Telling me I'm a failure and a fraud and not deserving of the breath that I'm deprived of as Gozaburo slams me into the ground, once, twice, three times. The cane comes out of that hateful yellow trunk in the corner. It strikes my flesh, but I'm numb to it, too sad to feel pain, wanting to die but knowing I have to stay alive to protect Mokuba. My thoughts are always the same at times like this, when my adoptive father's nearly killing me: Mokuba, stay safe. You'll always be my little brother, even if I'm not alive. Mokuba, I love you. I think I'm dying this time. My vision goes white, I'm unconscious, thank God. Not like Gozaburo cares. Blood on the floorboards. Blood on the bed. Blood on the walls.

And I looked down, and the blood was still everywhere. I wondered, if I were to check that hateful yellow trunk that held the cane, would it still be there? Would everything revert to the way it had been for those long six years? Would Gozaburo burst in the door, angry and frightening, wanting something to take his anger out on?

I didn't touch the trunk. If I did, if Gozaburo came back... I didn't care about what would happen to me, but what would happen to Mokuba? He was all I had, him and a ghost of a brother who died before I was brought into this hell. And our parents, now just memories of voices, faceless, nameless.

That was the bigger part of the reason why I killed that old bastard. I couldn't let him harm Mokuba, because I know he would have. That, and I was tired of the insults, the beatings, being raped so often. He'd always told me that a Kaiba never let anyone push him around. Well, I was just following what he said, now, wasn't I?

I was smiling, which was the sick part. Smiling as I remembered every detail of Gozaburo's death, savoring those moments when I went downstairs and told my little brother that Gozaburo was gone forever, and we could live in the house without fear now, and Mokuba would never have to tiptoe around ever again. He'd never have to see me bloodied and sobbing ever again. We could be a family now, a real family.

But that never happened, did it? Mokuba still tiptoed around, afraid that Gozaburo's big hand would come out of the shadows and slap him across the face. He still ran into my bedroom in the middle of the night at the slightest noise. As of late, he'd been talking to Noa. He said Noa's here, Noa wants to help, Noa knows so many things about this house that would even frighten me. And I still looked in on Mokuba every night, before I went to bed. I still do.

But Mokuba was wrong about one thing. My years here had toughened me beyond belief, given me a titanium shell with a lock that only Mokuba had the key to, and nothing could frighten me.

No, I was never going to be frightened ever again.

I sat down, resting my back against the bed, trying to clear my mind of all the ugly memories. My past was coming back to haunt me, though, I could feel it. I felt it right in back of me even now, as I'd felt it creeping up ever since Battle City. Battle City... Ironic to think that if I hadn't committed murder, I probably wouldn't have been alive to even think up Battle City.

That, I decided, was enough for one day. Enough remembering, enough sadness, enough waking nightmares, enough nearly feeling Gozaburo hitting me with his cruel hands. I was going to go downstairs then, and act like everything was alright, and maybe Mokuba wouldn't be so worried. And if I acted like everything was alright, I just might have started to believe it myself.

As I got up, my heel struck an old trunk that wasn't there last time I came up there. Even though it was hidden under the bed, I know it wasn't here. I spent enough time pressed into that mattress with my eyes shut tight to memorize what was under that bed, and there was no trunk!

And so, curious, I opened the trunk. It was filled to the brim with faded, leather-bound books, the oldest of which must have been close to sixty years old. I opened one of the newer ones and was immediately repulsed by what was inside:

"...And today that ungrateful brat of a child had to be taught another lesson. I took him up to the attic as always, and I believe he is learning well. Already, he is losing the air of innocence, which is being replaced with a cold, hard demeanor. Noa could never have been molded into such a perfect child. Noa was nowhere near as pleasing, either. Always, he would whine that we were father and son, that it was a crime that we did the things we did."

My hands shook. I couldn't read anymore, it was too disgusting, too unreal. And yet, I was almost glad to know that I was not alone. I was not the only one that Gozaburo raped and tortured. I became so curious after reading that. What drove that bastard to do what he did? I needed to know or I would snap. So, picking up another book, I read on...

"Today is the elder boy's twelfth birthday, and he is like a man of thirty in his behavior. I believe that I have destroyed any shreds of innocence that may have been clinging stubbornly on, for, one year ago today, I raped him for the first time. And after something like that, how can anyone remain innocent?"

It was all I could do to keep from vomiting. I knew that he got pleasure from the whole thing, but... Oh, I couldn't stand it. It was painful to read, and I nearly laughed at the thought that the all-powerful Seto Kaiba, whose only weakness was his baby brother, could have something close to a nervous breakdown in an attic, all from reading a few silly words.

I quickly pushed all thoughts of laughing from my mind. Once I started laughing, I knew that I would lose control completely and wouldn't that have been a field day for little Yuugi and his friends... And once again, I was picking up one of those damn diaries, why couldn't I stop myself, oh my God, I don't think I wanted to. I still wanted to find out about my foster father, after everything I've read so far; what was wrong with me?!

"...and she died giving birth to Noa. Ah well, she wouldn't have lived long anyway. I would have ensured that. Honestly, anyone who thinks that Aiko wouldn't have run screaming to her friends as soon as she awakened from her damn stupor is a damn fool. Darling Aiko was a lovely creature before Noa existed in any form, although Mother and Father always loved her more. I spent the whole of my childhood watching her blossom and change from a little girl ten years my junior to a beautiful young woman, slim and delicate, and alluring in so many ways that she did not realize..."

How could he have ever fallen in love? Gozaburo was always too cruel, too twisted to feel even the smallest bit of concern for anyone besides himself, let alone to feel any type of love. I was cursing him right then, wordlessly, but if he were there, my very feelings would probably have sent him howling to the deepest pit of Hell and shackled him there forever. Ugh, right where he belongs. Bastard.

My hands still shook with rage, and I was frowning like I usually did then. It was only Mokuba who had seen that softer side of me, the side that smiles and is warm. That side of me had been relegated to some drafty corner of my brain long ago and lay there sobbing, much like I did when Gozaburo was alive. Just the thought of his name makes me feel ill, even now.

And what was that? A photo had fallen out of the book, a sepia-toned photo of a young woman about my age at that time. That must have been "darling Aiko", and I must admit, she was quite lovely. Her hair was light, and her face was perfectly proportioned. Those big eyes were surely Noa's, but for all of their softness, there was a look of hidden pain in them. I knew that look. That bastard who adopted me and my little brother installed that expression into Mokuba's eyes permanently.

I turned the picture over. She was such an elegant little creature and she couldn't have been much taller than Yuugi's "dark half" or whatever he was calling that sorry excuse for a multiple personality disorder then. Written in Gozaburo's all-too-familiar hand is "Aiko", but it was written over something else. I could barely make out the word, but- Shit. That evil bastard, I knew then and there the cause of the suffering in that sweet girl's eyes. The word that he wrote Aiko's name over, of course, was "Nee-chan".

Poor Aiko, poor Noa. Was this what Mokuba had referred to when he told me that Noa knew so many horrid things? I was certain that this was one. I even wondered if Gozaburo didn't tell my adoptive brother this regularly, making him feel dirty, the child of rape and incest.

But as terrifying as this was, it was no answer to my question. Aiko died for some imagined wrongdoing, yes, but did it connect to my past? I sounded selfish, and yet I was starving for answers. Her story could wait for another day, after I'd moved on with my life.

"I promise, Aiko," I said aloud into the dust and sunlight. "I'll avenge you."

So I put down that diary on the bed. I'd be able to find it more easily next time I came up there. I dared not bring that filth downstairs and contaminate the rest of the house with Gozaburo's hate, and if Mokuba were to find it... The poor kid was already losing touch with reality and that might just have driven him over the edge. I decided that I'd just look at one more diary, and then I'd go downstairs. I'd had more than enough of this for one day.

The diary I picked up next was different than all the others. Its cover, originally white, had been scribbled over with blue and green crayon, and I could just make out some very sloppy kanji that spelled out "Noa". Perhaps this would be the one, perhaps not, but the cover drew me in. So that was from Noa's era, was it? Well, maybe Gozaburo would have something in it about why he had to adopt two innocent little kids and warp them beyond belief. Hey, Noa was the first one, wasn't he?

This diary was also in worse shape than the others. I was guessing a very young Noa had gotten his hands on it, and I was surprised he survived the punishment for that. Some pages were loose, too, but that was Gozaburo. I recognized that style from his business papers- the old bastard would get angry and rip things up. I don't even remember how many nights I stayed up late, piecing together bits of important documents that were scattered all over the office. And whose fault was it if those documents were missing pieces or sloppy-looking from the tape all over them (and believe me, they usually were)? Guess. Really, you don't need to be a genius to figure that one out.

My hands were still shaking with rage, and some of the diary's cover came off in my right hand. It occurred to me then that Gozaburo made everything he touched so fragile. Mokuba, certainly; that poor kid was falling apart even worse than the diary I was holding, and Aiko, and Noa, and me. I know it sounds cliche, but without the identity I created for myself, I'd have been sent screaming and raving to an institution years ago, maybe only three months after Mokuba and I were adopted.

There was a bloodstain on the floorboard that hadn't been there before, and I was getting slightly nervous then. Another one appeared, and another, and another. What was going on? Had I hurt myself and not known it? Was that place truly haunted, as Mokuba said? Or, worst of all, had I finally snapped?

Looking up, I somehow saw my reflection in the dusty, grimy window, and I realized that those dots on the floor weren't blood, they were tears. My tears. I couldn't believe it, I was crying. I was actually crying, and, just to make sure I'd been seeing that right, I touched my face. Yes. Tears. I hadn't cried in years, not since the first time Gozaburo raped me.

Suddenly, there was a noise at the window, and I looked up just in time to see a bit of a shadow fleeting across the grimy pane. It looked like a shadow to me, at any rate, and with my heart pounding, I turned around slowly and...

I saw nothing.

Later, I would realized that it hadn't been any shadow, but someone outside the window, and that thought was even less comforting. Nonetheless, that day, I began to believe in ghosts. Not like the silly Yuugi-tachi did, but a little, and that was enough.

I looked around one last time, wanting to make sure I was the only one up there. When I was quite satisfied, I went back to the diary, and began to read. I was not interrupted by anything other than myself, this time.

"...the boy is dead, for all purposes. Machines are keeping his heart pumping and all of those other vital functions going, and he cannot move his body. The only thing working is his brain, which is being uploaded into a computer as I write this, and his body will be preserved. Now that he cannot protest, I think the boy will finally be put to good use as a guinea pig. His body is, after all, relatively unscathed now that the doctors have sewn him back up..."

That wouldn't help me. It was merely the old bastard's evil plan for Noa's body, nothing more, nothing less. I sighed, feeling defeated. Maybe I was never going to know why my brother and I were treated with such cruelty.

What happened next was either fate or a happy accident. As I was putting the diary back into its box, a tattered page fell out and landed right in my lap. This page contained the single paragraph that I found useful that day, although I didn't know this at the time, and, feeling curious, I skimmed over it. Then I slowed down. And then, I just went blank from the shock of what was written on the paper.

"...meddlesome child is no longer a problem. Today, his limo had a run-in with an eighteen-wheeler, and there was no way he could have survived that. The tabloids and newspapers, tomorrow morning, will say that little Noa Kaiba was involved in a fatal car accident, and isn't it a tragedy and couldn't you just cry. But if they only knew the half of it! I crow with glee as I write these words, because they will be forever confidential in here: What accident? He was beginning to question me too much. The boy was turning into a failure, a dead branch, and dead branches are always cut off. Like his sweet mother Aiko, he would have gone running to someone the first chance he got, telling everything that was supposed to be private, and that couldn't happen. That man in the truck is getting out of jail free and a million dollars in hush money, and I'm free of a little problem named Noa..."

My mouth was open and my eyes were wide as I put down the paper. I wanted to get out of there, had to get out of there. I didn't care where I would go, I just needed to leave. I made sure the paper was with the Aiko diary on top of the bed, and then I ran down the stairs, taking them two at a time, not caring if I fell. I just had to get away from that attic and go somewhere, it could have been anywhere, to think this out.

Still in shock, I found my laptop, sat down at my office desk, and began to type:

#Gozaburo murdered his own son in cold blood. It could have been Mokuba.#

END CHAPTER ONE

Well? How do you like my attempt at Seto? Wait... I'm not so sure I want an answer...

Until next chapter (in which things start to really get twisted), goodbye!


	2. Return to the Attic

Skeletons in the Attic

A/N: First off, thank you to my reviewers! You get... cookies! (hands reviewers cookies)

I still don't own Yu-Gi-Oh. Oh well. Last chapter's warnings and pairings apply for this chapter as well. Mokie's in it! Woot!

Well, I'll shut up and let you all read now. Oh, and Seto's still narrating.

CHAPTER TWO

That night, at dinner, I sat at the table and barely said a word. I don't think I ate anything either, although it's hard to remember now. I was still shocked from what I'd found out earlier that day, too shocked, I think, to go about my daily life as if nothing had happened. I had to abandon my plan to keep my discoveries a complete secret from my little brother, but maybe I wouldn't tell him the whole truth. Maybe, I could just tell him that I found some diaries in the attic, but that he wouldn't find them interesting.

But that would only make him run up to the attic and read them, maybe make him ill from the horrible truths that would be revealed to him. I was trapped, really, one look at me and Mokuba would know that something was wrong, and I couldn't think of any way to abandon my plan of acting nonchalant.

"Hey, nii-samaaaaa... So what do you think? I think Noa's here with us, right now, at this table!," my brother smiled, and, illustrating his point, pulled out a chair next to him.

"Mokuba," I began. I paused for a few minutes, trying to figure out some way of saying what I was about to say without hurting my brother. I couldn't find one, and so I took the more direct route. "Mokuba, Noa's not here. I'm not even sure if his virtual identity survived after Battle City, and-"

I stopped when I saw the horrified look on my younger brother's face. He looked as if I'd said something inexcusably rude or slapped him across the face- his eyes were wider than they usually were and his mouth was opened in a tiny "o", but what happened next very nearly drove me to tears for the second time that day.

He turned to the empty chair next to him and whispered, "It's alright, Noa. He just doesn't believe yet, that's all. I promise he doesn't hate you, I promise!"

And then he turned his face to me and said very simply, "Nii-sama, Noa is here. I see him, and he talks to me."

I got up and left the table then. Mokuba was staring after me, but I didn't turn back, didn't dare to turn back, for fear that I'd see the tears in my brother's eyes spill down his cheeks. I couldn't bear to see that at that instant, and honestly, I never could.  
  
I walked, numb and not paying much attention to where I was going. Gozaburo had always made Mokuba cry like that, flinging cruel words and even crueler slaps his way without regard for what that might do to a little kid, and I had just dashed Mokuba's dreams to bits. All he wanted was a real family, any family at all, not just an older brother who was always off dueling or working, and I couldn't even let him dream about that.

A harsh sob escaped my throat and brought me back from my thoughts. Looking up, I saw the all-too-familiar set of stairs, the stairs I'd been dragged up and shoved down so many times before Gozaburo's death, and I gave a shudder. I just kept coming back for more, didn't I?

"Yeah," I murmured to myself. "I just keep coming back. I must be a masochist or something, the way I'm acting."

Those words seemed eerily familiar, and I pondered that as I walked up to the attic. I just felt an urge to go up there, and even now I'm not sure why. Maybe I knew that Mokuba would never look for me up there, or maybe I really am a glutton for punishment. Or maybe there was never any reason at all. Maybe my whole life was just a random bunch of coincidences, thrown together in such a way to produce me, Seto Kaiba.

I walked up the stairs with a fraction of the trepidation I'd had earlier in the day, still lingering a bit before actually entering the landing that led to the attic itself. The landing could very well have been part of the attic; it was only about two square feet of floor in front of a heavy wooden door. There were bloodstains out there, too, from the time I'd tried to crawl away from Gozaburo's abuse. Believe me, I learned quickly never to do that again.

I put my hand on the large brass doorknob, with all of its intricate, and to my mind, hideous, designs, and I turned it slowly, peering around the door when it was open a crack. Call it childish, call it what you will, but Gozaburo was still there, in my memories if not physically, and I was not going to risk being enslaved as I was until I was fifteen, used as a maid, a whipping boy, a sex toy, and most of all, a thing for Gozaburo to mold into his perfect son.

He tried to do that to poor Noa, but he wouldn't take his father's abuse anymore, and so his father wouldn't take him any more, either. I could have ended up like him, or worse, Mokuba could have ended up like him, dead by his so-called caretaker's hand.

I noticed a small dent in the door, and I remembered that it was my fault, or, more accurately, Gozaburo's fault. He'd slammed me into the door, on the day that I had tried to escape him, and finished what he was originally doing to me in the attic. When he was done, he saw the dent in the door and screamed horrible things at me while he knocked me to the ground with his hateful, awful fists, though I didn't remember what he was saying at that moment. It was just a blur of pain and noise and blood, that day, and I remember half-crawling, half-limping into my room afterwards. And I did as I always did after Gozaburo beat and raped me; after I cleaned myself up, I went quietly into Mokuba's room, slipped into bed next to him, and I clung to him as though the world was breaking and he was the only thing that could save me. He was the only thing I loved back then, not in any incestuous way, but in a desperate, pathetic way.

I punched the door. I hated that door, always, and I still do, even now, years later. It had reminded me of the torture that Gozaburo felt he had to put me through every day while he was alive, and it reminded me of the bond that Mokuba and I had once shared, the bond that was breaking just like Mokuba's mind was breaking at that time.

I went into the attic after that, walking slowly over to the bed as if I was deathly exhausted, and I collapsed there, sweeping everything that had been on the bed off of it with my arms, and letting out tearless sobs into the dusty and bloody mattress. I didn't notice what had been on the bed and I didn't care. Those diaries had caused all of this, they could goddamn burn for all I cared!

'He succeeded,' I thought to myself after I'd calmed down slightly. 'He really did succeed, in the end... He broke the bond I had with my nii-chan, and he did it through me. It's his fault, but it's mine really.'

And I broke into more of those weird harsh sobbing sounds, pounding the mattress with my hands and feet, and hating the world that could allow such a cruel bastard to take two young kids and torture them, hating stupid little Yuugi and his friends, with their perfect little lives, hating myself most of all.

"If I could kill you again, Gozaburo," I muttered into the mattress. "I would. Over and over and over again, until you were nothing but a pile of dust, and then I'd stomp you into the dirt like you did to me and Mokuba. Try to come back again, you bastard, and I'll kill you. I'll kill you!"

I lashed out with my right arm and punched the wall next to the bed. The impact hurt my hand, although I don't remember feeling any of that until later- the adrenaline rushing through my body as a result of my anger must have taken care of that for a good few hours.

I calmed down after about half an hour. I'm not one to stay emotional for long; I haven't been since I was ten years old. What I suffered at Gozaburo's hands had made nearly anything else that happened to me seem completely trivial.

I examined the bruises blooming on my hand with boredom. Since my hand wasn't broken or bleeding visibly, I decided to ignore the bruises and the pain and instead try to figure out what I could do to pull Mokuba up out of the insanity that he seemed to be drowning in. Two nights before, I'd walked in on him rocking back and forth on his bed, his eyes closed, and whispering a stream of words to no one.

"Mokuba?," I'd asked, more than slightly alarmed.

He'd opened his eyes, blinked a few times, and stared at me looking confused. That alone terrified me; I might have understood if Mokuba had given me a dirty look for entering his room without knocking, but this look... It was a haunted gaze, almost, and lost. He was staring at me like I was a complete stranger, and that turned the blood running through me to ice.

"Nii-sama?," Mokuba asked after a few minutes.

But I didn't reply. I couldn't. No words would come out, and so I just leaned back against his doorframe, put one hand over my eyes, and rubbed the bridge of my nose.

Mokuba was just looking at me, with a hint of fear in his big eyes, and I still stood there, covering my own eyes, maybe hoping that if I denied it, all of this would go away- my brother's insanity, my own inability to deal with it, the dark shadow of Gozaburo that was constantly hanging over both our shoulders. We must have made an eerie tableau, the young boy and his brother, one with haunting eyes and the other, agonizingly sad at the fact that he was unable to help the person he cared for most.

What brought me back to reality was the sound of paper rustling in one of the far corners of the attic. There was a toilet and a bathtub back there, and I think they both had working plumbing at the time. These were separated from the rest of the attic by curtains that someone had strung up.

That got me thinking. Someone had to have lived here at one point, long before me. Those curtains were up when Mokuba and I were adopted, because I remember trying to hide behind them several times. It failed in the end, though, because Gozaburo always found what he wanted in the end, one way or another. It never failed; I could run as fast and as far as I wanted, but he would always catch me eventually. Always.

That train of thought caused a shiver to go down my spine. I didn't want to think about him reaching out to me from beyond the grave, clawing and grabbing at me with his rotted fingers, eventually getting a good hold and dragging me to him... Dragging me down and down and down into a hell ten times worse than I'd had to endure while he was alive.

I was, I hate to admit it, scared. I didn't want to get up off of the bed, with its little fluorescent lightbulb hanging above it. I didn't want to leave my little fortress with its light and wander over to that dark, dark corner by the bathroom with the bloodstain on the toilet- not mine- and see what was there. No matter what horrid memories that bed held for me, I was sitting on it and I was safe.

You see, I was so afraid that my fears would be realized, that Gozaburo had never died after all and I had just been dreaming these last few years of freedom that Mokuba and I had shared. I even toyed with the idea of running down to my room, running down and grabbing the elegant little pearl-handled handgun that I'd found in the attic on that last day that Gozaburo was alive, the day I pushed him out of the window right near the bed I was sitting on.

It had initials on the handle, the gun, English letters in a very elegant script, and when I began to learn English, I was able to read those initials. They said "A. K.", and they were etched into the gun. It was so old, too, that I was almost afraid to touch it, and whenever I did, I handled it with a kind of reverence that I rarely felt for material things.

But I didn't go and get the gun, and I didn't leave the bed. I figured that Mokuba would eventually come to get me, bringing his warmth and light into this dark, chilly, and dismal little room. In fact, I was hoping with all my heart that he would. Honestly, I didn't know what I would do if I had to spend the night in this room full of nightmares and bad memories. To me it was more frightening and more real than any story I'd ever heard about a haunted house, and my mind was beginning to play tricks on me. I could have sworn that I'd seen Gozaburo's shadow cast for about a second on the curtain that separated the makeshift bathroom from the rest of the attic, and I backed up, hard, into the corner near the pillow. I misjudged the distance between my head and the wall, and my head hit the wooden boards with a resounding crack.

I thought I'd heard a loud gasp coming from the corner near the curtain, but I just chalked that up to the fact that I'd banged my head so hard on the damn wall. If my mind had been clearer, I might have recognized that as a signal to clear out as fast as I could, but it wasn't, and my hand had started to sting as well.

A minute later, I completely forgot my fear and pain as I felt the wood behind my head move a bit.

'A crawl space,' I thought, and smiled. 'A crawl space, a way to get out of here without going anywhere even slightly close to that curtain.

I began to tap the board so that it moved to the side, and now that I look back on it, what I did was simply and plainly stupid. It could have been a crawl space, true (it wasn't one), but it could also have led to the source of the noises I'd been hearing for the past hour, to Gozaburo or some other intruder, and I don't know what I would have done if that had been the case.

As it was, when the board came loose, I saw that it was only hiding about five cubic centimeters of space, and at first, it looked so empty that I thought my twenty minutes of effort had been for nothing. On closer inspection, I saw something fragile, something that was turning yellowish with age, something that still smelled slightly of a woman's perfume- I saw paper that was almost twenty years old.

I took out the papers. The writing on them was kanji, and the handwriting was unfamiliar and so neat that I knew immediately that it wasn't Gozaburo's. I rifled through them, and when I did, a picture of a small boy with dark hair and large bright eyes fell out. It wasn't Mokuba, Noa, or me, so I figured that this must have been either the owner of the papers or a friend of the owner.

I began to read, like I had read my sick bastard of a foster father's diaries only hours before, and it didn't take me long to realize that this was Aiko's diary.

"I've been up here for a week, Diary, and I'm still feeling so sick. I don't know how much of this is the baby and how much of it is Nii-san coming up here every day and... Oh, I won't say the word. It's too horrible, and I don't want to think about it. From now on, I'm blocking that nasty gross R-word out of my mind and hoping hoping hoping it never happens to me again! I just can't think about it... No, I WON'T think about it, not even when he comes up here and... does it... to me. I'll think about flowers and grass and what I'm going to name this little baby and how I'll ever be able to go to high school after missing so much time... Actually, no, that last one is too depressing, and I'm making up another rule for this attic, one aside from all of the ones that Nii-san made up when he hid me up here, and that rule is: NO SAD THOUGHTS!!!"

It was the sad and desperate diary of a little girl in a situation that no one should ever be in, ever. The burning hatred within me, hatred for Gozaburo, burned even hotter, and I leaned back against the wall and tried to calm down. It had been a mistake, reading this; it had only charged up my emotions even more and made me more apprehensive about Gozaburo appearing. This was, after all, his dungeon, his torture chamber, his room for imprisoning those who didn't serve him any other purpose than pleasuring him and being enslaved by him. He had control over this room and all who were in it, and I nearly felt his hand snaking, ghosting, along the back of my neck!

My eyes were wide and I was breathing hard, like someone who had just woken up from a horrible nightmare. I was pressed back against the wall by my fear, fear of I didn't know what, fear that was just an overpowering, oppressive sense of terror.

And then, the rustling in the far corner came again, rustling that sounded like paper being shaken by an angry fist. I closed my eyes, pressed them shut so tight I saw white and my head hurt, and covered my ears like I was a little kid again who thought that by denying something, it would go away. I opened my eyes a moment later, knowing that I was going to get a headache if I stayed like that, and I thought I heard a sound that had made my blood run cold ever since Gozaburo adopted Mokuba and me. The sound meant anger, and anger meant punishment, and punishment meant . . . pain, pain beyond imagining, because it came from being betrayed by someone who was supposed to protect you, someone you were supposed to trust.

The sound was paper being ripped. It came slowly at first, and started out almost inaudible. I wasn't sure if I was hearing it, or if my over-stressed mind was causing me to imagine things.

'There's a nice route to take,' I thought to myself. 'I'm imagining it, and I was imagining the shadow on the curtain and the rustling, and the fact that the story of Noa's death was missing from the bed. I'm sure it can be explained well. Tomorrow morning, I'll come back up here and I'll see that the paper has been right under the bed the whole-'

RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRIP!

I was startled, to say the least, and I knew that I wasn't imagining things unless... Unless I'd finally snapped. That possibility was even more unsavory to me than the fact that someone wanted to scare me, and scare me badly. Gozaburo, I kept reminding myself, was dead and gone and couldn't hurt me or Mokuba anymore.

RRRIP! RRRIP! RRRIP! RRRIP!

The sound of paper being torn was faster and more furious than before, like something had put whoever was doing it into a horrible rage.

'No, no,' I thought, 'He's gone, the bastard's gone, I'll never let anyone harm Mokuba again, never. Never!'  
  
RRRIP! RRRIP! RRRIP! RRRIP!  
  
Or was he gone?

I shut my eyes again, shut them almost as tight as I did before. I was really and truly frightened now, and furious. Someone was trying to scare me or drive me insane, maybe both, and once I found out who it was, I'd kill them for making me relive the most hellish parts of my life! The sound of paper tearing came faster and faster, and I tucked my knees up to my chest, wanting to protect myself but knowing at the same time that it wouldn't do any good.

I might have stayed like that the whole night, shivering and frightened, but for a sound of footsteps on the old wood floor. For a split second I dared to hope that it was Mokuba, but my hopes were dashed when I recognized those footsteps and I got an ill, empty feeling when I did so.

Those footsteps were always a warning that I should close my eyes and not move, hoping that maybe I'd be left alone this time and not abused as I usually was. Those footsteps were the last thing I heard, sometimes, before a large fist connected with the side of my head and my whole world went dark...

But usually, I wasn't that lucky. Sometimes, it seemed like any luck I had, had run out after Mokuba and I had been adopted together.

And when I heard the sound of a key turning in a lock, another sound that I'd grown to hate and fear when I was younger, I knew my luck had just run out all over again.

I opened my eyes, and I was greeted with an all-too-familiar slap across the face, a slap so hard that I bit my lip hard and tasted the salty blood.

"So, boy, you found out about Noa," boomed a voice that I had quickly learned to associate with my idea of Hell on Earth.

"Gozaburo, you fucking bastard," I growled. "I thought you were dead!"

He shook his head, sneered, and let out a deep, arrogant chuckle.  
  
"Not at all, dear boy, not at all," he said in a cold voice. "I am very much alive, unfortunately for you and your dear little Mokuba."

I would have replied with some scathing string of obscenities, but, like so many times before, a fist connected with the side of my head and there was an explosion of pain behind my eyes.

And for six hours, I could not defend myself against Gozaburo. For those six hours, I was unconscious, and felt nothing, and I didn't want to.

END CHAPTER 2

Sorry that took so long. Hopefully, this chapter's good? Next chapter may be even more cruel to our poor Kaiba brothers, but don't worry, they won't die!

...In that chapter. For the rest of the story, all bets are off. Hell, people, even I don't know!

Thanks for reading!


End file.
